


327

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, Gen, M/M, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he has to move slow, this is the way to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	327

**Author's Note:**

> Castiel and the Impala, season 9. Previously posted to tumblr, archived here.

Castiel adjusts to being reliant on this slow transportation, impatient, but impressed with the car's power and sturdiness. Dean invites him to ride shotgun on occasion and Sam doesn't even make a single snarky remark or act like that's anything strange. Castiel's tentative about all of it, wondering if he belongs there, if he deserves to be sheltered within that shell of chrome and steel. But he starts to feel at home during long car rides, falling asleep in the back seat. 

There's the time Castiel has to drive her, without having any idea what he's doing except academic knowledge of what all the parts do, yet not exactly how to do it, and if he hadn't, that hunt would've killed Sam and Dean. Dean hands Castiel the keys a few days later and gives him his first driving lesson. 

Sam and Castiel lean against the Impala drinking beer while they clear the air on a few things too long not cleared. 

He doesn't need instruction on how to fix the engine, relying on diagrams he finds on the internet and a few books. Gets his hands greasy repairing her while Dean looks on, then gets his greasy hands all over a willing Dean, as they again keep tumbling into this thing that's been there for years but newly formed. 

Castiel's blood soaks the vinyl after he gets hurt during a hunt and despite knowing things are different, he's startled how much he can bleed, how much it hurts. 

The sound of the squeaky door becomes familiar. He snaps at Sam and Dean for throwing fast food wrappers in the footwell instead of dealing with them properly. He trails his fingers along her side, remembering lying on a road with his grace leaking from his wounds as she loomed out of the dark, the strange flood of relief as her headlights caught him. 

Her paint job gets a bad, jagged, scratch, and Castiel, as Sam puts it, _freaks out_. Castiel isn't entirely sure why it distresses him, or why he begs Dean to let him patch it himself. 

There's a conversation with Dean late one night on Route 80 just past Carson City, Castiel riding shotgun, Sam dozing in the back, that leave both of them awkward, a little flushed, and unable to stop grinning. 

Castiel's not quite content at moving this slowly, unable to shake off the restlessness, but if he has to move slow, this is the way to do it.


End file.
